


No One Wants Nothing

by we_could_be_heroes



Category: The Knick (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Childhood Memories, F/M, TW: addiction, saving people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 12:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2268891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/we_could_be_heroes/pseuds/we_could_be_heroes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucy has a thing for lost cases.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No One Wants Nothing

One of Lucy's earliest memories was that of her father being led to bed by his mother, docile as a sheep and blabbering nonsense, laid down and carefully undressed, as if he were a child himself. Lucy hated the moments when her father seemed to have been replaced by a different person, an invader who controlled his mind and made him seem a helpless puppet - they made her scrunch up her little girl's nose in distaste at the acrid smell and furrow her brow at the oddity of the situation. They never made her afraid; her father was not a violent drunk, a fact Lucy was still thanking God for in retrospect. As she grew older, she learned to live with, though deeply resent, her father's fondness for whiskey. She never understood why he chose the cold bottle as his night's companion over his living, breathing wife and children and why he preferred to sit with it cradled in his lap, stare into the fireplace and slowly reduce the industrious, self-sufficient man of the day into a pitiful wretch of the night. She anxiously guarded the secret of his daily transformations, as did the rest of her family. When one day, he didn't get up for work in the morning and instead started vomiting blood, deep red, dark brown, she realized the precarious balance of his split life had turned against him, and when several days later, he died in terrible pain believing the whole room was swarming with rats, she blamed herself. She wished she had done something, anything, while there was still time.

_“You have been avoiding me, Nurse Elkins.”_

Dr. Thackery was nothing like her father: he had no family, he was better looking and significantly more successful, an expert in his field who could afford to live in a resplendent house on one of the best streets, and, as Lucy was now all grown-up and no longer a scared, confused little girl, there was still hope for him. Lucy was there and Lucy would do for him what her mother should have done for her father. Her wish to help Dr. Thackery overcome his other, darker self was fueled by more than a child's desire to make up for the damage she had allowed to happen in the past, however. Dr. Thackery was not yet another lost man - she passed by throngs of those in street - to Lucy, he was special. While for other men possessed by the demon of addiction Lucy felt only pity, for him, for the part of him she saw working, flawlessly and ceaselessly, at The Knick, she felt much more. She dared not admit it to herself for a long time, but one night, as she languidly caressed herself before falling asleep and let her mind freely wander, she caught herself slipping into a fantasy of his face leaning over hers and his bigger, stronger hands in place of hers. She welcomed the realization, thinking that if there was any truth to what her girl friends told her about the nature of men, it might make certain things much easier for her.

_“You don't have to do this, Lucy.” He touches her hair for the first time._

_“But I want to,” she says and shifts closer._

Perhaps she should have never come to New York, perhaps she should have never forced open the window and clambered into his house, perhaps she should have never followed the black cab to the bead curtains and the smell of oranges of Chinatown. But all those actions were now a thing of the past and since she couldn't reverse them, she resolved to make the best of them. When she approached Dr. Thackery in his office, intent on carrying out yet another of her decisions, she was shy and hesitant; partly because that was how she felt, partly because that was how he would expect her to feel and she didn't want to endanger her plan with any distractions. He told her she was making a big mistake, one that she was sure to live to regret, and then accepted her proposition. She didn't feel dizzy or overwhelmed or even particularly happy when he kissed her for the first time, but she found it satisfying nonetheless, praising herself for going though every step of the procedure without any complications. When she knelt in front of him, he made the obligatory attempt to push her away, but she was ready and determined and carried out the act without much difficulty, though some amount of involuntary tears.

_"What do you want from all this?" He asks her one night. She feels warm and content in his arms. Only the slightest hints of apprehension at the lateness of the hour and the prospect of a full day's work at the hospital lurk in the corners of the perfection._

_She tells the truth: "Nothing."_

_"No one wants nothing." And she knows he's right._

There was pleasure to be had in the relationship, certainly. She found that out when she made her second visit to his house, this time on invitation. There, in the all too familiar bedroom, she managed to cross the barrier in herself between self-consciousness and surrender and forget all about duty and the future and lose herself in the moment. So far, it was only for a few breaths, but she supposed this, too, was a task she could get better at with practice, in time.


End file.
